Good morning. A meeting of backbenchers, a message of defiance from an embattled leader and a desperate appeal for unity. And for a change it wasn't David Cameron. Tories will allow themselves a brief moment to relish overnight reports that Ed Miliband had to give his troops a pep talk at the PLP last night. The troubles besetting the Labour leader are growing. The reverberations from Mr Tony's intervention in the New Statesman last week are still being felt. He reinforced his message in a speech in the US, reported in the Guardian, namely on the perils facing parties and leaders that lose touch with the centre.

Mr Miliband must be resenting the drip-drip of 'helpful' advice from those associated with Mr Blair, who plainly feel that with David Miliband gone, there is nothing left to be loyal for. Dan Hodges has another of his perceptive pieces of analysis in the Telegraph today, in which he details Labour's 35pc strategy for sneaking over the finish line, which, as Rachel Sylvester explains in the Times (£), amounts to 29pc core vote plus 6pc grumpy Lib Dems. If true, it's unambitious. Tories believe the skids are under Mr Miliband, both on policy and party management. They should look to their own troubles. But when a leader has to issue an appeal for unity, things are not going well. Are Labour wars about to become the theme of this late spring?

Well, there's still the possibility of peace in our time. The Mail reports that Ed Miliband has invited Mr Tony to "truce talks" with a view to keeping him quiet in the run-up to 2015. As Polly Toynbee writes in the Guardian, there's fat chance of that. Mr Blair is, she writes, careering around "like a loose horse at the Grand National" and threatening to cast a shadow over the current leadership in the same way that Baroness Thatcher did with generations of Conservatives.

Of course, unlike Lady Thatcher, Tony's message is all about consensus. But the catch-all model also flies in the face of the 35pc strategy. As Dan Hodges writes, it isn't just Mr Blair who finds Ed's plan wanting:

Of course, Blair’s political judgement isn’t infallible… But his comments aren’t the act of a back-seat driver, either. They’re the act of a passenger who’s tapped the driver on the shoulder and told him 'It’s OK, I’ll walk the rest of the way.' He’s not grabbing for the wheel. He’s getting out before the car ends up in the ditch. And there are several members of Ed Miliband’s shadow cabinet starting to wish they could get out with him.